Staff Supt. Kimberley Greenwood jokes about how she can’t stop using the word “exciting.”

But that’s how the 50-year-old head of Toronto police’s Central Field Command feels about her journey north to become Barrie’s ninth — and first female — chief of police.

“It is exciting,” Greenwood said in a sit-down interview this week. “I’ve really never focused in on being the first female to do this or the first female to do that. I’ve always tried to conduct myself professionally and I was evaluated on my performance versus being evaluated as a woman.”

The 31-year veteran, mother of two and wife to a recently retired Toronto police officer, was born and raised in a true blue Toronto home where her father, Ron Meadows, was unit commander of 22 Division.

“He kind of laid the foundation of what policing was all about,” she said. “It was always seen as kind of the gatekeeper, the knight in shining armour that was helping keep the city safe. That was my image of policing and really that hasn’t changed very much.”

Knowing she always would, Greenwood joined the force in 1981 as a cadet and attended police college two years later. Her first assignment was to 12 Division in what was then the City of York. The west-end station was attached to a dog pound.

Greenwood walked the beat and drove a scout car. She also went undercover with another female officer in 1986 for an “exhilarating” bank robbery bust at a Davenport Rd. branch. When a 25-year-old, cocaine-addicted crook leapt over the counter, Greenwood went after him, tackling him to make the arrest. The man pleaded guilty.

That, she said, was also very exciting.

Greenwood later switched gears, becoming the child abuse co-ordinator stationed out of police headquarters after working with young victims of “horrific crimes,” assisting officers to ensure convictions.

The role, she said, was about catching the bad guys but was also much more fulfilling when she was able to see victims carry on to be successful in life.

“Everybody signs on the dotted line to be a police officer to make a difference,” she said. “It’s not corny. That’s really why you do it.”

As she rose through the ranks, Greenwood did a tour of some of Toronto’s most violent and complex communities — including Jane and Finch, Regent Park and Jamestown — working in primary and community response as well as crime prevention initiatives with youth.

She also spent several years at professional standards, implementing a program to track internal and external complaints about officer conduct, a system still in place today. She also prosecuted and adjudicated misconduct cases under the Police Services Act.

In recent years, Barrie’s force has suffered its own internal allegations of misconduct after former officer Christina Farrell, daughter of Insp. Jim Farrell, filed a human rights complaint following a miscarriage she claimed resulted from a struggle with an impaired prisoner.

Greenwood said she sees fairness and transparency as essential to her new role as chief.

“Police officers are held to a higher standard. . . . So processes are very important,” she said. “The chief is responsible for all their members and will be held personally accountable for others’ actions too and I’m ready to accept that responsibility.”

After serving as director of the police college, Greenwood became head of Central Field, where she manages a $249-million-plus budget and is responsible for 2,132 officers and 115 civilians.

Recent initiatives tackling violence spawned by last summer’s Eaton Centre and Danzig St. shootings have taken shape under her command, including Project Summer Safety which stepped up police presence in strategic deployments.

Greenwood said her career in Toronto has struck a balance between front-line jobs and high-level administrative duties that will serve her well in the new role.

In a release earlier this month, Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman said Greenwood’s experience in a challenging command makes her ideal as the “challenges of policing Barrie continue to change.”

“It is certainly going to be the people that I will greatly miss,” she said of her time in Toronto. “It has been an amazing career. . . . I couldn’t have done it by myself.”